[ Posted Thursday, October 25th, 2007 – 16:24 UTC ]
This is monstrously unfair to the middle class, or working class, who are subsidizing the rich by having to pay more taxes than they do. There is absolutely no reason not to tax capital gains at exactly the same rate as all other income is taxed, other than "Wah! We're rich, and we don't want to pay taxes!" (which I don't consider a valid reason). Income is income, no matter how you make it. I would be willing to bet that most Americans would agree with that statement.
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 – 15:41 UTC ]
Boo!!
Halloween has apparently come early in Republican-land. The Republican National Committee's website today unveiled a prominent link to their new "Scariest Democrat" page. You can go to the page and vote from among six of the Democratic presidential candidates (with sound effects!). Missing are Kucinich and Gravel, which seems odd as Kucinich should definitely be in the running for the candidate to scare Republicans the most.
Out of the other six, guess who is currently polling at 91% of the vote? No real surprise....
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[ Posted Saturday, October 20th, 2007 – 17:26 UTC ]
[ Posted Thursday, October 18th, 2007 – 17:55 UTC ]
Senator Chris Dodd doesn't get a lot of press attention even though he's running for the Democratic nomination for president. This may be about to change, as Senator Dodd has just announced he is putting a "hold" on the FISA bill being considered by various Senate committees.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 – 10:10 UTC ]
But it still adds up to not just slinging a little mud, but rather truckloads and truckloads of mud oozing into America's living rooms through ubiquitous television ads all campaign season long. You're going to have to be pretty quick on the remote control, or else wear hip-waders while watching television during campaign season, because it is going to get mighty deep mighty fast.
Think about it. On the one hand, you've got a candidate Republicans are convinced has a "666" mark somewhere on her body (normally that would be considered "hyperbole," but not in this case -- I bet you could find plenty of folks willing to swear on camera that Hillary's the anti-Christ). Then on the other hand, you've got a guy who is so easy to throw mud at, it's not even funny.
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[ Posted Monday, October 15th, 2007 – 14:38 UTC ]
Conventional wisdom (or at least the self-proclaimed sages of political conventional wisdom, the Washington punditry) has been telling us that the 2008 presidential election is going to be The Most Important Election In Modern Times (if not actually In History), and that (of course) the electorate is More Polarized Than Ever -- which explains not only how incredibly early the contest started, but also the fierce battles for the primaries now being waged.
But what if this conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong? What if the 2008 election is a real snooze-fest, and voters are barely motivated to go to the polls?
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[ Posted Friday, October 12th, 2007 – 17:32 UTC ]
I must say, Charles Rangel impressed me last weekend, on CBS' Face The Nation, as he is the first Democrat I've heard yet using the "block grant" argument against the Republican spin on SCHIP. Modesty forbids me to take any credit, but if he is indeed reading these columns I'd like to say, "Well done, Representative Rangel!"
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 – 03:54 UTC ]
Sovereignty (n) -- government free from external control
Is Iraq a truly sovereign state, or is the Maliki government a puppet of America? We may know the answer to this crucial question in a very short time. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki could show independence from American interests in many ways, some of them decidedly not to President Bush's liking.
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[ Posted Monday, October 8th, 2007 – 15:32 UTC ]
A few months ago, the chattering classes were all a-tizzy over the prospect of a Michael Bloomberg third-party bid for the White House. Nothing much came of it, but we all had fun pontificating about the possibility (yours truly included -- 7/11/07). Since it was such an enjoyable exercise, I'd like to be the first to roll out another third-party scenario to provide fodder for the punditocracy (in case this turns out to be a slow news week).
After taking several recent announcements into consideration, I have gazed into my crystal ball and foreseen Ron Paul as the nominee of the Libertarian Party for 2008. Paul will be supported by droves of "family values" voters and will actually gain a respectable percentage of the popular vote. The Democratic nominee then waltzes into the White House, spikes the ball, and does an end-zone dance in the Oval Office.
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[ Posted Saturday, October 6th, 2007 – 14:23 UTC ]
